12 Techniques to Help You Live a Happy and Fulfilled Life

1. Keep Life Simple:Far too many of us are always over analyzing and looking for the most complicated way of doing things in life. Sometimes life was meant to be simple – a walk through the park, a simple yes or no answer, or a quiet evening with the family. Don’t try and clutter your life with unnecessary decisions by making everything complicated and complex. Keep it simple!
2. Practice Being Satisfied:How many times have you heard someone say, “If only I had a few more dollars I’d…” or “If I just had another day off I could….”? Many people don’t know how to be satisfied with what life gives them. They are so busy wanting more that they squander what life has already given them.
3. Beware Of Indecision:Nobody said life is easy, and sometimes you have to make the tough choices. Never put off a decision that you can make today. You may miss some of the best and most exciting opportunities in the world because you were indecisive. Successful people didn’t get where they were at by prolonging or going back and forth on decisions!
4. Practice Cheerfulness:You’ve heard it before, and you’ll hear it here again – it only takes a few muscles to smile! You would be surprised at how well being cheerful to others can spread like wildfire. We live in a society where it seems that glumness is the rule of order. A simple smile or kind word can spread through our culture like wildfire – not only will you feel better, but those who interact with you will feel better!
5. Learn to Like People: You don’t have to love everyone you encounter, so learn to like people – especially those who are different than yourself. Often you won’t agree with everything they do, or maybe all of their beliefs, but by learning to get along with them you will open your mind up to change – a critical trait that is absolutely necessary in today’s world.
6. Live and Let Live:Is it really your concern what the guy across the street wants to do with his life or who he wants to share his life with? Learn to live your life to the fullest and let others live their life to the fullest. None of us is above anyone else, and none of us should think we should be allowed to dictate how another person should live their life.
7. Adversity Teaches:Adversity can be one of the most powerful teachers we will ever have in our lives. You will learn so much about life by overcoming adversity and learning how to face it head on. Adversity often comes dressed in many different outfits, but you will change your life by learning how to deal with it and prosper from it.
8. Don't Take Yourself So Seriously:Here is a secret: it’s ok to be a little goofy now and then! You only get one shot at this life, so make the most of it. Have some fun and show your children and those around you that you know how to have fun. You aren’t the greatest gift to mankind this world has ever had – so don’t act like it! You may find you add years to your life, not to mention a ton of laughter!
9. Have A Sense Of Humor:Laugh, joke, and now and then pick up a cream pie and throw it! Laughter has been shown to help people live longer, reduce their blood pressure, and help them relate to people from around the world.
10. Practice Objectivity:Be objective in your decision-making and risk-taking. Know the facts and avoid letting racial, social, or any other type of bias influence your decisions. Great leaders perform their best when they act based on facts, not on emotion or prejudices. Become a great leader in your life.
11. Tolerate Your Own Mistakes:You will make mistakes – in fact, you will make so many mistakes you will never be able to list them all. Learn that mistakes happen and the best thing you can do is to learn from them. Don’t spend your entire life dwelling on a mistake you made years ago – learn from it and move on. The world isn’t going to wait while you live in the past.
12. Forgive Yourself:Stop beating yourself up over things that happened in the past - things you did or didn’t do, and mistakes you may have made with others.
    
    Forgiving yourself is a skill so few of us have the ability to accomplish. It's such a shame that we spent a lifetime living in the past and never make it to our full potential in the future. Forgive yourself – and just as importantly, forgive others.

It may seem like a rather long list, but I encourage you to read it and then refer back to it every now and then. You’ll see each one ties into the others in some fashion and that these simple steps really do help you live a more meaningful, happy and fulfilled life.

Life happens. Be a part of it.

What Defines Success?

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about success, and how it means different things to different people. When I first graduated college, I thought success was setting and then achieving a goal to reach a certain level. But for someone who is naturally ambitious, this doesn’t really work. Because once you reach that level, you want to go higher. Eventually, you will rise as high as it’s reasonable to expect, and then what? Do you feel like a failure because you aren’t at the tippy, tippy top? Making success about being the best in your field is bound to lead to disappointment, because even if you’re the president of your country, there will be another world leader who is more accomplished and more popular with the people.

Another definition says that you are successful if lots of other people think and/or tell you that you are. Except how do you decide whose opinion counts, and whose doesn’t? Are the people in your life really equipped to make an objective judgment about such things? Plus, it’s always dangerous to base your self-esteem on what other people think. Then there’s the people who say that you’re successful if you’ve gotten rich doing what you do. This makes a degree of sense, although if your windfall was mostly luck or being in the right place at the right time, of if your wealthy in laws loaned you the money to get a leg up, how successful are you really?

For me, I think success is enjoying your work enough so that you’re energized at the start of each business day. It’s having the respect and admiration of your colleagues. It’s earning enough so that you’re in a position to pursue the lifestyle you want, with enough time to spend with the people who are most important to you. It’s making a contribution to society so that you know in your heart that the world is a better place with you in it.

What do you think?

Tips for Setting Goals

The Six P’s of Goal Setting
Research tells us that when we write a goal down we are more likely to achieve it. Written goals can be reviewed regularly, and have more power. Like a contract with yourself, they are harder to neglect or forget. Also when you write your goals in a particular fashion you are able to stimulate your subconscious to be continuously alert to situations that will further your goal. In order for your written goals to have the greatest impact, write them by incorporating the special power of these six P’s of goal setting:

POSITIVE
Goals must be stated in positive rather than negative terms. ("I am a neat and organized person," rather than "I am no longer unorganized.")

PRESENT TENSE
Goals must be written as though they are happening now or have already happened. The subconscious mind only operates in the now. If you create goals in the future tense, your subconscious will never get there.

PERSONAL
Goals must be about you, and under your control, not about someone else.

PRECISE
Goals must be clear and describe exactly what you want to do.

POSSIBLE
Goals must be realistic and within the realm of possibility to achieve

POWERFUL
Use words that convey action and emotion.

Write these goals and place them where you will see them at least twice a day. If possible, read them aloud and visualize what you are saying.

What You See Is What You Get
Visualizations are the pictures of achievement we have of ourselves. Those pictures greatly affect the outcomes we produce. If we see ourselves succeeding and attaining our goals, we very likely will. If, on the other hand, we have no image of success or create an image of failure, we very likely will fail.

Visualizing is something everyone does, every day. When you daydream, think about someone you know, or remember a place you visited in the past, you are visualizing. And you can make the technique of visualization work for you. You can use it to help achieve your goals by seeing yourself achieving your goals.

Enjoy the feeling of success, and often think these positive thoughts. In giving you these guidelines, I am hoping for your success too!

Success is about Choosing What You Want in Life!

You can choose success. Do you believe this? If you do not then you have chosen (yes chosen) a different route and success will not be a prominent feature! Success is about choosing what you want in life and taking the necessary steps to achieve that goal. Success is not stopping until you get there!

• Choose to remove whatever is holding you back.
• Choose to live your success.
• Choose to believe in your success.

You can choose success. Or you can choose to stay safe and do what you do now. Guess what - you will still be doing the same in ten years time. The question is - do you want to?